What does e-learning mean?

Electronic learning or, shortly said, e-learning, represents a wide area of knowledge acquisition in an educational process by means of modern information and telecommunication technologies. It belongs to the so-called e-branches, coming in the foreground in connection with the transformation of the modern world into "information society”. The area of e-learning is rather wide, covering production and distribution of interactive electronic courses (e-learning courses), learning management and related feedback with the help of modern technologies. E-learning courses can consist of multimedia presentations, simulations, combinations of animations, video and audio sequences, text commentaries and, last but not least, of students´ knowledge checking tests. Learning Management Systems (LMS) were developed to provide feedback between student and tutor, to manage, control and exactly evaluate this process. Besides these basic features, LMS systems provide for many online study features (chat, video conferences, sharing of applications, virtual classrooms, etc.)

Thanks to e-learning it is possible to solve some specific problems, closely connected with adult education. In today’s bustling era, full of endless changes in our lives, time plays an important role. Unfortunately, the lack of this phenomenon feels every one of us, let alone the time for our education. Many problems of adult education are directly related to it. Just here e-learning can be applied as a very useful and powerful tool for increasing of knowledge, skills and qualifications of individuals as well as of personnel of modern companies. The contribution of e-learning is indisputable first of all in the area of enterprise training.

E-learning will probably never substitute classical forms of education - first of all in some specific areas demanding personal contact between students and teachers. Nevertheless, it is a very progressive supplement of the educational programmes that - thanks to IT - in some way accelerates, improves and first of all reduces costs for education itself.